Crash Proof is not a Tarantino movie, but it's about as scary as the last one was (hint: plenty).
I've only read part of it so far (on audiobook, I love those), but I already feel like It's been explained to me, in simple terms, vital data about how economy works. Data which really should be part of everybody's basic education, but which it seems that even many economists are ignorant about, or lying about.
For example how "money" is different than "wealth". Money is an exchange medium. Wealth is the things you can buy with money.
And how inflation is actually money supply going up faster than good supply, while rising prices is only the result of inflation.
For example data about how the problems of the Western economy go much deeper and longer back than I knew, and what a trade deficit really means. And how when economists say that the economy is doing better than ever because consumption is bigger than ever, that's like saying little John is more educated than ever because he is now watching 10 hours of television per day instead of 8. The base of economy is savings and production, and those have been declining like all-git-out in the West for decades. The "boom" in recent years have been borrowed money.
He explains how the fact that the US has gone from production to service is not progress, but disaster. And getting a whole big production economy going again is obviously not going to be a trivial matter, holy cow.
He's talking about the US economy mainly, but it seems to me at the very least Britain is in the same boat, seeing as how the Sterling is falling too, and that Britain has also stopped producing things which can be exchanged.
If he is right, and I think so, then the current crisis is only the beginning. Could be grim.
I'm looking forward to the last half of the book where he promises to talk about how one can avoid going down with the ship.
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Note from wikipedea:
Schiff was once accused of "anti-American" views for his pessimistic assessment of the US economy. In October 2007 Charles Payne of [Wstreet.com] accused Schiff of "Anti-Americanism in the guise of financial advice." on Fox News' "Bull's & Bears" program.
In the same segment Mr. Payne suggested purchasing the stock of Washington Mutual, a company which less than 52 weeks later was seized by federal authorities in what amounted to the greatest bank failure in history.
